Truck and Barter and ... maybe Bandits

Arnold Kling responds to my post 1500 year old markets with Truck and Barter or Bandits? Kling argues

And it could very well be that the difference between voluntary trade and stolen goods is more of a continuum than a sharp distinction. It could be that markets have always been a mix of goods produced for voluntary trade and stolen goods. But for what it's worth, my picture of pre-modern markets is that they consisted mostly of stolen goods. My picture of modern markets is that they consist mostly of goods produced voluntarily with the intent of selling.

Personally I'm nearer the "voluntary trade" end of continuum than Kling. One reason for this is my reading the work of Morris Silver, in particular his 1995 book Economic Structures of Antiquity. Part II of the book, "Markets in Antiquity: The Challenge of the Evidence", contains two chapters; the first on "The Existence of Markets" and the second on "The Credibility of Markets". These chapters challenge Karl Polanyi's position that the ancient world did not know market activity. Which I'm assuming is, at least roughly, Kling's position as well. Silver presents 14 factual assertions that outline Polanyi's view and confronts them with the available evidence. All of the chapters are worth reading but let me pick out one assertion, number 8 - p.153, which I think is relevant.

As a general rule, the cities (e.g., Babyon) of the ancient world possessed no marketplaces of any significance. We First meet an important market for the retailing of food in the seventh century B.C. at Salamis in Asia Minor.

Silver argues on pages 153-6 that is is in fact wrong. "Free" markets do seemed to have existed. Silver writes,

Polanyi's assertion is nevertheless surprising because marketplaces - the geographic concentration of transactions-are a predictable and easily implemented adaptation to high information and transportation costs. In a world without daily newspapers, the location of similar trades in a compact area would have reduced the cost to consumers of acquiring information about prices and product characteristics. The resulting increase in information acquired would reduce price dispersion and help traders to interpret market signals accurately. The gains from reducing travel time between shops would be greatest for relatively standardized goods and for "search goods," whose quality is easily ascertained by inspection (Nelson 1970: 323-25). The benefits to consumers were not forgone because, despite Polanyi, there is ample evidence for marketplaces in the ancient Near East. (p.153-4)

Silver continues

Nehemiah 13.16 (fifth century B.C.E.) tells of the "men of Tyre . . . who brought in fish, and all manner of ware, and sold on the sabbath unto the children of Judah, and in Jerusalem." (p.154)

and

Edward Lipinski (personal correspondence) calls my attention to the phrase bab abulli, an expression designating the gate as a place where business is transacted. There are references in commercial contexts to the babtu "quarter of a city, neighborhood," a word arguably derived from babu. Texts of the earlier second millennium record that the copper of several individuals lies at Assur in the babtu and show merchants using silver from the babtu. Babylonian and Assyrian texts of the frist millennium speak of the "gate of buying." Note also the evidence of grain sales at Samaria's gate in the ninth century. Another Akkadian word, machiru, often has the abstract meanings "price, market value" and "commercial activity." Rollig (1976) has shown, however, that beginning in the Old Assyrian and Old Babylonian periods, machiru also has the concrete meaning "marketplace." The machiru is a place for macharu "receiving" goods. Slaves, garments, and grain are purchased in the marketplace and loans are repaid there. At Mari grain is "(measured) in the container (used in) the marketplace"; a tablet is written in Nuzi's marketplace and a stela with "correct prices" is set up in the marketplace. Again, loans are given, sacks are bought, and captured Arab camels are sold at the bib machiri "marketplace gate". In the Old Babylonian period bit machiri "seems to refer to the stall of a merchant. . . , small in size . . . and adjacent to other stalls".(p.154-5)

This I would interpret as being trade nearer the "voluntary trade" end of continuum than the "stolen goods" end.

Silver also points out, (p.156-66), that money was used in ancient economies, "[i]n fact, the ancient Near East knew money very well in the generic sense of common media of exchange" (p.157). If there was no voluntary trade, why would money be used on a widespread basis? After all Menger's explanation of the historical origin of money relies on trade.